This invention relates to dunnage dispensing for packaging and more particularly to a novel and improved process and apparatus for accumulating and dispensing individual dunnage units.
Many merchants, particularly those who sell wares through catalog and internet services, must package and ship individual orders. Standard size cartons are used. Since the individual orders vary in volume and weight and seldom completely fill a standard carton, it is necessary to provide dunnage to fill packages to protect the contents of packages during shipment.
Currently foamed plastic elements known as peanuts are widely used. Peanuts enjoy popularity because of their relatively small size and light weight. The small sizes provide ready filling of a wide range of sizes of spaces in packages being formed.
While peanuts are popular, they have distinct disadvantages. A major disadvantage, is that a substantial volume of storage space is required to maintain an inventory. A further major disadvantage is, in a large use environment a very substantial capital investment is required for delivering the peanuts to packaging stations.
A troublesome disadvantage is peanuts produce substantial quantities of dust. Further, because of their very light weight, the peanuts, when dispensed into packages, do not all find their way into packages being formed. Rather they create litter around each packaging station. Moreover, when a package is opened and the contents are removed, a customer opening such a package is invariably confronted with a clean-up job because peanuts are seemingly everywhere around the site where the package was opened.
U.S. Pat. Nos. RE36,501 and RE36,759 to Hoover et al. disclose and claim methods of making dunnage from a chain of interconnected bags (the Hoover Patents). application Ser. No. 09/315,413 filed May 20, 1999 by Bernard Lerner, PCT application No. PCT/US00/13784 filed May 18, 2000 as a continuation-in-part thereof (The PCT Application), and a concurrently filed continuation-in-part of both Ser. No. 09/735,345 (The Continuation Application) each disclose improved methods and apparatus for producing dunnage units by inflating and sealing interconnected pouches. The Continuation Application is hereby incorporated in its entirety by reference.
The Hoover Patents and the referenced applications each disclose dunnage units which have tacky external surfaces that stick together. While such tacky dunnage units are highly advantageous for shipment of heavy products, for many packages such tackiness is not required. Moreover, such tackiness tends to be counterproductive to the supply of dunnage units at the rates of speed required by businesses which market products via catalogs and the internet, in that packaging must be accomplished with dispatch. Further, because the tacky units adhere to one another, rapid filling of voids in a package being created may be inhibited. In addition, there are many applications where tackiness is not required or desirable so that the provision of tackiness simply adds to the cost of the units.
The process and apparatus of The Continuation Application are used to produce dunnage units. With this process a web of interconnected pouches is fed sequentially to position end ones of the pouches at a dunnage formation station. As dunnage units are formed at the formation station, they are dropped into an attached hopper or accumulator to provide and maintain a volume of dunnage units.
One of the outstanding advantages of the present system is that minimal space is provided for inventory of dunnage materials. This is so because the material consists of flattened plastic webs either in coils or in festooned form. Expressed another way, the present dunnage system permits a user to maintain an inventory which is not inflated by the storage of air as is the case with the popular peanuts and other dunnage systems.
When an operator forming a package desires to put dunnage units into a package, a motor is energized to drive a pair of dispensers in counter-rotation. The counter-rotating dispensers are in the form of brushes which dispense the dunnage units through an outlet opening at the base of the accumulator.
A foot switch is provided to enable a packager to cause dispensing of dunnage units from the accumulator while the packager""s hands are free to shift the package being formed or to otherwise manually distribute the units into package spaces to be filled.
Preferably a preprogrammed timer is also provided. Through experience an operator will know the approximate time duration needed to dispense an appropriate number of units to fill spaces in a package being formed. The operator will then depress a button which causes the motor to be energized for a selected one of a number of available time periods. If needed, the package may then be xe2x80x9ctopped offxe2x80x9d through motor energization by the foot switch. Use of an automatic timer enables the packager to perform other tasks as the dunnage units are dispensed.
The accumulator has a number of unique features. One of these is the provision of a deionizer for deionizing air around the dunnage formation station and in the hopper thereby minimizing static electricity in the dunnage units being formed. To further control static electricity, the hopper includes a conductive plate positioned adjacent the accumulator""s receiving chamber further to reduce the presence of static electricity.
The brushes have circumferentially spaced spiral sets of bristles. When dunnage units are being dispensed from the accumulator through a dispensing outlet, units are trapped between adjacent but spaced sets of bristles so that a few units are dispensed while the brushes retain the remaining units in the accumulator.
In order to minimize interference with an operator""s movements, the dispensing outlet is preferably laterally offset from and below the dunnage formation station. To assure adequate feed of dunnage units to the dispensing outlet, a lower wall of the hopper below the formation station is tapered downwardly toward the outlet. In addition, an air nozzle for directing a flow of air is provided. The air flow blows dunnage units from locations immediately below the formation station toward locations above the dispensing outlet.
The dunnage formation process is preformed independently of the unit dispensing. While the dispensing is intermittent as successive packages are filled at spaced time intervals, the unit formation is on an as needed basis up to continuous operation.
In the preferred arrangement, two vertically offset depth sensors are provided. When the volume of units in the hopper reaches a predetermined minimum level, the lower one of the two sensors signals the pouch formation machine to commence operation. When the volume of units reaches a predetermined maximum, the second and higher positioned one of the units, emits a stop signal to the dunnage formation machine. Thus, the volume of units in the hopper is maintained between maximum and minimum levels and the units are formed at a rate responsive to the demand for units.
Alternately, a single sensor can be provided which, for example, utilizes a light beam. When the beam is not interrupted a start signal is sent to the machine. When units in the hopper reach a level that interrupts the beam, a stop signal is sent to the machine.
Tests have shown that the efficiency of an operator experienced in using peanuts as dunnage material has a significant productivity increase when the process and apparatus of the present disclosure is practiced in lieu of the use of peanuts.
Accordingly, the objects of the invention are to provide a novel and improved system for and method of providing and dispensing dunnage units.